Friday, August 28, 2015

This week
included tons of announcements from brands and social media companies! Check
out my favorite trends from the Twitterverse:

Unboxing
is Unbelievable – The
volume of YouTube unboxing videos has boomed in recent years. Many are still
user-generated videos, but brands are starting to get in on the action. Disney
and Star Wars: The Force Awakens are hosting an 18-hour unboxing
marathon in 15 cities and 12 countries on September 3 in preparation for the
unveiling of new toys on Force Friday (September 4). A Los
Angeles Timesarticle gives a rundown of the event, including live
broadcasting on “Good Morning America.”

Thinking
Outside the Square –
Instagram announced this week that users can now post in landscape and portrait
formats. According to a reporter for The
Verge, no longer will people struggle to capture the perfect Instagram
photo!

The
Internet of Things Hits the Gym
– A new service targeted at health clubs, GymGroups,
includes hardware and gym-branded mobile apps. It combines social networking
and the features of popular fitness watches into hardware that is attached to a
workout center’s exercise equipment. GymGroups is setting the stage for a new
segment of the industry – the connected gym.

“Friends”
Fans Get Swifty –
Taylor Swift and Lisa Kudrow, Phoebe from “Friends,” played the song “Smelly Cat,”
at the Staples Center in LA. Don’t get it? Take a trip back to the ‘90’s.

Twitter
Targets the Masses –
Even though 95 percent of people in Twitter's most important global markets are
aware of Twitter, less than 30% of them actually use it. To grow its user base
beyond youth and tech enthusiasts, Twitter will launch its first integrated
marketing campaign, centered on an upcoming feature designed to curate tweets around
live events. An Ad
Age interview Twitter CFO Anthony Noto shares the details.

Monday, August 24, 2015

This month, our client UnitedHealthcare launched an innovative program in Illinois and northwest Indiana. The Healthy Savings program offers
discounts to members who make healthy shopping purchases at more than 250
participating grocery stores. LCWA was tasked with promoting the initiative and
made a big splash with a front
page business section story in the Chicago Tribune. Additional coverage for
the program included stories in community newspapers and segments on area radio
programs. These placements helped increase awareness of the distinctive digital
coupon program throughout the market.

Friday, August 21, 2015

It was a busy week with everything from children heading
back to school to high-profile scandals. Here are some of the stories that I
found most interesting:

Scandalous:
It was a bad week for those whose names start with a “J.”Jared
Fogle is in deep water after pleading guilty to child pornography charges,
and Josh
Duggar is again in the spotlight after hackers stole user data from Ashley
Madison and he was outed as a member of the affair-enabling site.

Shopping
Screw-ups: Two major retailers found themselves facing backlash from angry
customers after glitches in their rewards programs. Bloomingdales
accidentally gave its loyalty program members shopping sprees ranging from $5,000-$25,000
and them made them return all their merchandise, while Sephora
found themselves facing mass returns when customers were unable to redeem their
rewards points for prizes promised, such as trips to Paris and Los Angeles.

The
Four-day Work Week: The parent company of the Japanese retailer, Uniqlo, is
testing out the four-day
work week, allowing 10,000 employees to work 10-hour days, four days a
week. The idea behind the program is that a more flexible schedule attracts and
retains talent, particularly women, but the jury is still out on if working
longer hours in a day will hurt productivity.

Flashback
Friday: For those who are not aware, Facebook Notes
do still exist and they are getting a major facelift. After Twitter
got rid of its character limit for direct messages, Facebook decided to follow
suit and create a way for people to read and write longer-form stories. We can
only hope this will eliminate the novel-long status updates from people you
went to high school with.

We’ve All
Been There: The first day of school is rough, and this
kid shows us that it’s okay to miss your mom.

Monday, August 17, 2015

3 out of
5 teachers say they have children in their classrooms who regularly come to
school hungry.*

As the beginning of another school year approaches, one area
organization is leading the way in combating these startling statistics.
Dedicated to ending child hunger, LCWA client Loaves & Fishes Community
Services – a Naperville-based hunger relief and anti-poverty organization – is
helping to ensure local students are prepared for pop quizzes, book reports, science
projects, and spelling tests throughout the school year by providing essential
nutrition that contributes to their health and intellectual development.

Breakfast
– On average, students who eat breakfast earn higher math scores, attend more
days of school, and are more likely to graduate.* Loaves & Fishes client
families with school-aged children receive extra
breakfast items, milk, and eggs to provide a nutritious start to their
children’s day.

Lunch
– The consequences of child hunger at school include difficulty concentrating,
headaches, stomachaches, colds, poor academic performance, and behavioral
problems.* Over the summer months, when subsidized school lunches are not
available, Loaves & Fishes provides lunch
items for children, and during the school-year, nutritious after-school snacks.

Dinner
– Food-insecure children are 90% more likely than kids from food-secure homes
to have their overall health reported as “fair/poor” rather than
“excellent/good.” Hunger in childhood also has been linked to significant
health problems in adulthood.* Last year, Loaves & Fishes provided 4,960 client families – including 8,719 children age 18 and under – in
our community with groceries for
nutritious evening meals.

LCWA is proud to partner with Loaves & Fishes Community Services in
the fight against child hunger by working with area media to promote the
organization’s life-changing programs and outreach initiatives. Over the past
year, we’ve helped the organization reach new donors, volunteers, and families
in need through exposure in such high-profile media outlets as CBS2 News, Chicago
Business Journal, Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Sun Times, Chronicle of
Philanthropy.com, CLTV, Daily Herald, FOX News Chicago, Illinois
CPA Insight Magazine, Kane County Chronicle, NBC5 Sunday Morning,
PBS “In the Loop," WDCB-FM 90.9, and WERV-FM 95.9 “The River.”

Friday, August 14, 2015

It was
a week for laughing in a hipper way, settling scores and celebrations. Check
out my favorites from the Twitterverse:

The Demise of LOL – LOL is so 2008 – or is it?
Recent Facebook study that proclaimed “haha” is the most popular way we laugh
online, with only 1.9% laughing with the old LOL, but analysis suggests that where
you live has more to do with how you laugh than your age. You won’t find
any hehe or haha in Chicago, for example. We love a good emoji in the Windy
City.

Periscope Problems – Live video streaming app
Periscope is popular in part because of the ability for real-time Q&A, but
insiders suspect that sexual harassment may be driving
female broadcasters away from the new social channel.

Tinder Tirades and North Korea – It comes back to
vanity…Vanity Fair that is. The magazine’s September issue sparked a
Twitter tirade with Tinder over an article claiming the app has changed dating
norms and fostered a
culture of casual sex and few relationships. Responding in 30
tweets of wrath, Tinder called out the article false and made many
assertions about its validity, including a claim that it has “many users in
China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though
Facebook is banned.” The North Korea reference took on a life of its own with
Twitter users, resulting in hundreds of satire-filled tweets reflecting on the
dating service’s application in the communist country.

Press Release Hacking
– U.S. authorities
announced arrests this week in association with an insider trading conspiracy
that involved hacking
into wire distribution services MarketWired, PR Newswire and BusinessWire
to gain valuable business news. Trading on the stolen news before it became
public resulted in $100 million illegal profits. MarketWire issued a statement
to partners including LCWA detailing the security steps it has taken since the
2010 attack to protect customers.

Celebration Station – From #NationalSmoresDay and
#NationalRelaxationDay to #MiddleChildsDay and #LefthandersDay, this week was
packed with wacky events for everyone. And while middle children tweeted out
their plight and left-handers trumpeted their unique perspective, our favorite
buzz of the day comes from the planes buzzing our offices Thursday and Friday
in preparation for the coming #ChicagoAirAndWaterShow.
Eyes to the skies, Chicago!

Monday, August 10, 2015

Decades in home products PR have helped our LCWA media
relations team cultivate strong relationships with syndicated writers. When
Eureka launched its new vacuum, the Eureka Brushroll Clean,
we knew it would be a perfect fit for one of our favorite writers, Maggie
O’Neill, author of the "Moms Gear" column for the Tribune News Service. Maggie
writes thorough, honest and influential reviews, and it is always a pleasure to
work with her. Her review
of the Eureka Brushroll Clean was very positive – leading to excitement and
high fives around the office when it appeared on the websites of more
than 20 major daily newspapers. We expect it to run in print in several more
over the next few months. This is another example of how media ties can help
our clients accomplish their PR goals.

Friday, August 7, 2015

This week featured some big news for social media brand
managers and really head-scratching Tweets. Here are my favorite finds:

Managing a brand’s
Instagram became much easier. Hootsuite announced this week that the company will fully
integrate Instagram into its social media management platform. Brand managers
will be able to “schedule and publish Instagram content, monitor and engage
with Instagram audiences and create team workflows,” according to Social
Media Today. The logistics of managing a brand’s Instagram account has
always been a source of headaches for PR people. This news solves most of those
problems.

Yelp adding data on
hospital wait times, quality. While Hootsuite may have just cured headaches, Yelp is
surely causing a few in health systems across the country, with its
announcement (h/t Mashable) that it
will integrate ProPublica data into its pages health care facilities. The data
includes, according to Mashable, ER wait times, patient satisfaction scores,
the number of free beds available and any government fines for not meeting CMS
standards. The information is compiled by ProPublica from their own
research and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for 4,600
hospitals, 15,000 nursing homes, and 6,300 dialysis clinics in the U.S. and
will be updated quarterly.

Facebook adding live
video streaming for famous people. Facebook has added a new feature, simply called Live, that
will allow celebrities to shoot live streaming video that will be broadcast to
their followers’ news feeds. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Serena
Williams, Michael Buble and Martha Stewart all live streamed on Wednesday to
promote the feature, according toMashable. Live
video has been the social media trend of 2015, and with this announcement, it
appears unlikely Facebook will integrate with live-streaming apps Meerkat and
Periscope. The company hasn’t announced if the feature will extend to users
other than celebrities.